Ratepayer rep’s role questioned

Consumer advocates say group fell short on San Onofre settlement

As regulators and utility companies sought an answer to the tricky question of who would pay $4.7 billion to mothball the San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Diego County, a consumer advocacy group was at the table.

It wasn’t one from San Diego.

Now, with the resulting settlement on the agenda for discussion at the Public Utilities Commission today, some local advocates are wishing the ratepayer representation had been stronger.

The primary advocate — deemed an “intervenor” under state regulations — was The Utility Reform Network or TURN, a Bay Area nonprofit that considers itself statewide in reach.

TURN reached a settlement deal in March with the two owners of San Onofre, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. The agreement calls for ratepayers to pick up $3.3 billion of closure costs for the faulty power plant, which is $1.4 billion less than the utilities sought.

TURN staff attorney Matthew Freedman said the group worked closely with the state’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates to enter settlement negotiations, saying utilities have superior resources and there is no precedent for making Edison and SDG&E absorb the entire cost of closing the plant.

“It was about having a small number of parties representing the largest amount of ratepayers,” Freedman said. “We thought we’d get a better deal through settlement than litigation.”

$0
84% (466)

$1.1 billion
5% (30)

$2.2 billion
2% (13)

$3.3 billion, as proposed under settlement
3% (15)

The whole $4.7 billion
6% (34)

558 total votes.

TURN was founded in 1973 by consumer activist Sylvia Siegel after she learned that no one regularly challenged rate-hike applications being submitted to the state utilities commission.

The San Onofre proposal the group hashed out over 18 months has yet to be approved. In addition to the Wednesday hearing in San Francisco, regulators have scheduled a community meeting in June in Costa Mesa to discuss the agreement.

The settlement is expected to be considered by the full commission later this year.

TURN and the utilities are urging state regulators to approve the plan as proposed.

Some local consumer advocates who were not welcomed to the negotiating table say they want a better deal.

“I’m really disappointed in TURN,” said Ray Lutz of the Coalition to Decommission San Onofre. “They didn’t represent the ratepayers very well at all. It makes me wonder what’s behind it.”

One theory suggested by critics is that the state’s intervenor system — which gives payments to approved advocacy groups based on their successes — rewards consumer groups that go along with regulators and utilities more than those who do not.

“The reason TURN was able to go to the table is because they were willing to play ball,” said Mike Aguirre, a former San Diego city attorney who also has intervenor status in the San Onofre case. “TURN has made a strategic move that will make them fabulously wealthy.”

Aguirre is bothered that the proposed settlement closes a San Onofre investigation announced in October 2012 without a public review of what went wrong. He noted that Edison shares moved up after the settlement was announced.

“What’s unusual about this is how TURN sold it,” he said. “They embraced not even having a hearing and they asked for it not to be changed in any way. It was a fait accompli.”